Niall Quinn International career Who signed Quinn? Eamonn Dolan. Where did QUinn remain in the 1993-1994 season? Iceland Triangular Tournament in 1986.
Who tried to sell Quinn in 1995?
Who tried to sell Niall Quinn in 1995?
Quinn played in the qualifiers for the 1986 UEFA European Under-18 Football Championship, and made his Irish international debut at under-17 level against Northern Ireland at Seaview in a 6-1 friendly win in January 1985, the first ever fixture between the two nations. Quinn scored a hat trick as did Eamonn Dolan. However Arsenal refused permission for Quinn to travel to the 1985 FIFA World Youth Championships.  Quinn made his senior debut as a substitute against the host nation in the Iceland Triangular Tournament in 1986. Quinn played for his country at two World Cups, in 1990 and 2002; he missed the 1994 FIFA World Cup because of injury. Quinn was also a member of the Irish squad that participated in the 1988 European Football Championship playing just once, as a substitute in the Republic of Ireland's 1-0 win over England in Stuttgart.  Quinn scored the equaliser against the Netherlands in the 1990 FIFA World Cup which allowed the Republic to progress to the second round of that tournament. In the qualifiers for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, he scored against Cyprus on his 35th birthday to break the all-time goalscoring record, then held by Frank Stapleton. In the tournament proper, his header set up Robbie Keane's late equaliser against Germany, which was the only goal Germany conceded before the final. In the second-round, with the Republic behind 1-0 to Spain, it was a foul on Quinn that led to Ireland's last-minute penalty, converted by Robbie Keane, which tied the game and brought extra-time, but the Republic lost 3-2 in the resulting penalty shootout.  After the tournament, he announced his retirement from international football, amassing 92 caps. At the time, he was his country's all-time top scorer with 21 goals; this record was later surpassed by Robbie Keane in October 2004.  Quinn had a testimonial match between Sunderland and the Republic of Ireland in 2002. He donated the entire proceeds to charity, an act for which he received a number of awards, including an honorary MBE. Instead of receiving an appearance fee for the game, all the players received a letter from a sick child. Quinn played for both teams during the match, which raised over PS1 million. The Republic of Ireland won the match 3-0. CANNOTANSWER
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Niall John Quinn (honorary MBE; born 6 October 1966) is an Irish former professional footballer, manager, businessman and sports television pundit.

As a player he was a striker who played top flight football for Arsenal, Manchester City and Sunderland, with spells in the Premier League for both City and the Black Cats. Quinn also received 92 caps for the Republic of Ireland national football team, scoring 21 times, which makes him Ireland's second highest goalscorer of all time. He also appeared with the Irish team at the UEFA European Football Championship of 1988 and two FIFA World Cups in 1990 and 2002.

He later was part of a consortium to buy Sunderland and became the clubs chairman. He also had a spell as manager before stepping down to a role of club director. He left the club in February 2012 and has since worked as a pundit namely on Sky Sports.

Playing career

Gaelic games
Niall Quinn played Gaelic football for the Perrystown, Dublin 12, club Robert Emmets. He also played underage football and hurling for Dublin. In July 1983, Quinn captained a Dublin Colleges GAA party on a one-month tour of Australia.

Aged 16, he played in the 1983 All-Ireland Minor Hurling Championship Final, and was offered a contract to play professional Australian rules football before settling on a career in football. He played Gaelic football for Co. Kildare club Eadestown after his retirement, winning a junior C county title in 2008.

Club career

Arsenal
He played as a youth for Irish club Manortown United, which was based at Greentrees Park, adjacent to Robert Emmets GAC (it not being unusual in Dublin to play two separate codes of football). After an unsuccessful trial at Fulham he signed professional forms with English club Arsenal in 1983. He was signed as a centre-forward, but also had a brief spell as a centre-half for the Arsenal third team. After scoring 18 goals in 18 reserve matches in the first half of the 1985–86 season, Quinn was included in the first-team squad for a match against Liverpool. Quinn scored in the match as Arsenal recorded a 2–0 win. He made a further 11 league appearances for Arsenal that season, but failed to score as they finished seventh in the league. The end of the season brought Quinn his first call-up to the Republic of Ireland national team.

Quinn found himself playing under a new manager for the following season, as George Graham was appointed in place of Don Howe. Quinn had a regular place in the side that season, appearing in 35 league games and scoring eight goals. He also collected a Football League Cup winner's medal as Arsenal triumphed 2–1 over Liverpool. However, after Arsenal signed another target man, Alan Smith, in the 1987 close season, Quinn struggled to get into the team. Over the next three seasons he managed a total of just 20 league appearances and five goals – his three appearances in 1988–89 not being enough for a title medal. Quinn's lack of opportunities led him to submit a written transfer request at the start of the 1989–90 season. In total he scored 20 goals in 94 appearances for Arsenal, of which 81 were starts.

Manchester City
Manchester City manager Howard Kendall signed Quinn for £800,000 in March 1990, shortly before the transfer deadline. He marked his debut with a goal, in a 1–1 draw against Chelsea at Maine Road. He scored 22 times in his first full season, and he went on to spend six years at the club, scoring 78 goals in 245 appearances; his time at City was hampered by a cruciate ligament injury in 1993–94. Although he returned to the side the following season, he managed just eight goals from 35 games.

His most notable game for City was 20 April 1991 when he scored early on and saved a penalty as City beat Derby County 2–1, relegating Derby in the process. City goalkeeper Tony Coton had been sent off before half time for fouling Dean Saunders to concede the penalty. At this time teams rarely named goalkeepers as substitutes, so Quinn replaced Coton in goal. Other notable games included the Manchester derby on 7 November 1993, in which he scored twice in the first half to put City 2–0 up against United by half time, although a remarkable United comeback saw City lose 3–2.

In the 1993 close season, Everton made a bid to sign Quinn and a further bid was made early in the 1993–94 season, but both bids were rejected and Quinn remained at Maine Road for a further three seasons. A cruciate ligament injury sustained in a match against Sheffield Wednesday in November 1993 caused Quinn to miss the majority of the 1993–94 season, and prevented him from playing in the 1994 FIFA World Cup. He returned at the start of the 1994–95 season, but the partnership forged by Uwe Rösler and Paul Walsh in his absence meant he was not always a starter. In attempt to reduce the wage bill, Manchester City tried to sell Quinn in the 1995 close-season, but a proposed move to Lisbon club Sporting fell through after failure to agree contractual terms.

He managed a total of 193 league appearances in over six years at Maine Road, and scored a total of 64 goals for them.

Sunderland

Quinn finished his career with a highly successful spell at Sunderland, joining the north-east club in August 1996 for a club record £1.3 million, although he missed six months of his first season due to a knee injury – similar to the one which ruined his World Cup chances three years earlier. Before his injury, he had got off to a fine start to his Sunderland career, finding the net twice on his debut in a 4–1 win at Nottingham Forest. In his absence from September to March, Sunderland struggled and although he was back in action by the end of the season, they were relegated.

His partnership with striker Kevin Phillips, signed in the 1997 close season, was one of the most prolific in the Football League in the late 1990s/early 2000s (a combined 194 goals for both players in all competitions from 1997-98 to 2002-03) and helped the club to regain promotion to the Premiership for the 1999–2000 season. In March 1999 Quinn again had to play in goal, this time replacing the injured Thomas Sørensen in a game against Bradford City. In similar circumstances to when playing for Manchester City against Derby County in 1991 Quinn scored and then went in goal, and kept a clean sheet to help his side win. He also has the distinction of being the first player to score at Sunderland's Stadium of Light, against Manchester City in 1997. He became a local legend at Sunderland, winning both the Sunderland and North East Sportswriters' Player of the Year awards in 1999 after scoring 21 goals in Sunderland's record-breaking Division One title-winning season. His final appearance for Sunderland came on 19 October 2002 against West Ham.

In a league career lasting 17 years, he had played a total of 475 times in the Premier League and Football League, scoring 141 goals.

International career
Quinn played in the qualifiers for the 1986 UEFA European Under-18 Football Championship, and made his Irish international debut at under-17 level against Northern Ireland at Seaview in a 6–1 friendly win in January 1985, the first ever fixture between the two nations. Quinn scored a hat trick as did Eamonn Dolan. However Arsenal refused permission for Quinn to travel to the 1985 FIFA World Youth Championships.

Quinn made his senior debut as a substitute against the host nation in the Iceland Triangular Tournament in 1986. Quinn played for his country at two World Cups, in 1990 and 2002; he missed the 1994 FIFA World Cup because of injury.		
Quinn was also a member of the Irish squad that participated in the 1988 European Championship playing just once, as a substitute in the Republic of Ireland's 1–0 win over England in Stuttgart.

Quinn scored the equaliser against the Netherlands in the 1990 FIFA World Cup which allowed the Republic to progress to the second round of that tournament. In the qualifiers for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, he scored against Cyprus on his 35th birthday to break the all-time goalscoring record, then held by Frank Stapleton. In the tournament proper, his header set up Robbie Keane's late equaliser against Germany, which was the only goal Germany conceded before the final. In the second-round, with the Republic behind 1–0 to Spain, it was a foul on Quinn that led to Ireland's last-minute penalty, converted by Robbie Keane, which tied the game and brought extra-time, but the Republic lost 3–2 in the resulting penalty shootout.

After the tournament, he announced his retirement from international football, amassing 92 caps. At the time, he was his country's all-time top scorer with 21 goals; this record was later surpassed by Robbie Keane in October 2004.

Quinn had a testimonial match between Sunderland and the Republic of Ireland in 2002. He donated the entire proceeds to charity, an act for which he received a number of awards, including an honorary MBE. Instead of receiving an appearance fee for the game, all the players received a letter from a sick child. Quinn played for both teams during the match, which raised over £1 million. The Republic of Ireland won the match 3–0.

Post-playing career

Quinn retired in 2003 at the age of 37, taking a brief coaching role at Sunderland. Quinn has also made appearances as a television pundit and commentator for televised matches involving his former teams with Sky Sports. He made a single league appearance for Thai Premier League side BEC Tero Sasana in March 2006 to promote the league and the side's link with Arsenal.

Quinn released an acclaimed autobiography Niall Quinn – The Autobiography (2002), which was ghostwritten by Tom Humphries. It won the Best Autobiography category in the inaugural British Sports Book Awards. It was also nominated for a William Hill Sports Book of the Year award. The book is not structured chronologically, but rather in the context of Quinn's career swansong, the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan.

Heading the Drumaville Consortium of wealthy Irish businessmen, in June 2006, Quinn successfully brokered a deal to buy a controlling stake in Sunderland. In July 2006 Quinn became the chairman and manager of Sunderland. The deal was finalised on 27 July 2006, with sufficient shares being sold to the consortium in order for them to take complete control.

His managerial career did not get off to a good start as the team lost its first four league games in a row. On 22 August, Sunderland played Bury away in the League Cup where they lost 2–0. After the match Quinn said that a new manager would be appointed by Sunderland's next game. Quinn stepped to one side (to continue in his role as Sunderland chairman) paving the way for Roy Keane to take charge. This was highly unexpected considering the huge rift between the two arising from Keane's infamous ejection from the 2002 World Cup. Keane was appointed manager of the club on 28 August 2006. The appointment matured into a great success, with Sunderland clinching an immediate Premier League comeback as Football League Championship champions. Quinn made substantial amounts of money available for buying new players, as he had a declared ambition to establish Sunderland as a top club. 

In 2008, he received the James Joyce Award of the Literary & Historical Society in University College Dublin.

In 2010, Quinn was named a patron of the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation.

In October 2011 Ellis Short replaced Quinn as chairman of Sunderland. Quinn was appointed as Director of International Development on behalf of the club and remained in this role until stepping down in February 2012 and after six years involved with the running of the club saying "Everything is in place for Sunderland to really make a statement, which was always my aim".

Since leaving Sunderland, Quinn is now chairman of a satellite broadband company in Ireland called Q Sat.

In 2012, Quinn started commentating for Sky Sports and normally commentates alongside Martin Tyler.
He won, also in 2012, the North East Football Writers' Association's Personality of the Year for 2011. In November 2013, Quinn was bestowed with the Freedom of Sunderland award by the city of Sunderland.

In January 2020, Quinn was appointed as interim deputy chief executive officer of the Football Association of Ireland, choosing to go without salary until the financial future of the organisation could be secured. In September 2020 he stepped down from his interim CEO role.

Fan relationships
Quinn has his own song titled "Niall Quinn's Disco Pants". The song was originally created by Manchester City supporters during a night out on a pre-season tour in Penola, Italy, in 1992. There had been a bust-up with City team-mate Steve McMahon and Quinn had removed his torn and bloodied shirt and was dancing with Rick Holden wearing just a pair of cut-off jeans. He was "hardly aware" that there were a group of hardcore City fans watching and they treated him to "the first performance of the song that will follow me till the end of my career."

The song was adopted by Sunderland fans and released as a single by the club's dedicated fanzine A Love Supreme. It reached no. 56 in the UK Singles Chart in April 1999.

Quinn has received praise for his relationship with Sunderland fans. This was highlighted in March 2007 when, during his tenure as chairman, Quinn paid over £8000 to allow around 100 Sunderland fans to travel home by taxi when stranded at Bristol airport after being ejected from their scheduled flight home. The incident happened on Saturday night when Quinn, Sunderland staff and a group of supporters boarded an easyJet flight from Bristol to Newcastle, following Sunderland's 1–0 win at Championship promotion rivals Cardiff. After spotting Quinn, many of the fans broke into song, serenading Quinn with 'Niall Quinn's Disco Pants'. EasyJet staff, angered by the boisterous behaviour, ejected the fans from the plane and Quinn, outraged at the fans' treatment, also left the plane. Quinn, seeing there were no other flights available, decided to commandeer a fleet of taxis and minivans in order to return the fans home.

Personal life
Both Quinn's parents are from Thurles, County Tipperary. His father as well as his mother's brothers played hurling for Tipperary. He was born in Dublin. He now lives in Kildare. He has been married to the Irish model Gillian Roe since 1992, and they have two children: Aisling and Michael.

Career statistics

Club

International goals
Scores and results list Ireland's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Quinn goal.

Managerial record

Honours
Arsenal
Football League Cup: 1986–87

Sunderland
Football League First Division: 1998–99

Individual
 Irish Young Player of the Year: 1990
 Manchester City Player of the Year: 1991
PFA Team of the Year: 1998–99 First Division
 Sunderland Player of the Year: 1999
 North East Football Writers' Player of 1999
 Beacon Fellowship Prize for his contribution to medical and children's charities, 2003
PFA Merit Award: 2002
North East Football Writers' Association's Personality of the Year: 2011
Freedom of Sunderland award: 2013

See also
 List of outfield association footballers who played in goal
 List of players who have converted from one football code to another

References

External links

 
 
 The Niall Quinn Living Tribute Site
 Niall Quinn articles for The Guardian
 Fan site

1966 births
Living people
Association football forwards
Association footballers from Dublin (city)
Arsenal F.C. players
Manchester City F.C. players
Sunderland A.F.C. players
Niall Quinn
Premier League players
English Football League players
Niall Quinn
1990 FIFA World Cup players
2002 FIFA World Cup players
UEFA Euro 1988 players
Businesspeople from County Dublin
Dual players
Dublin Gaelic footballers 
Dublin hurlers 
Eadestown Gaelic footballers
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
Gaelic footballers who switched code
Irish expatriate sportspeople in England
Irish expatriate sportspeople in Thailand
Members of the Order of the British Empire
Outfield association footballers who played in goal
People educated at Drimnagh Castle Secondary School
Republic of Ireland association footballers
Republic of Ireland football chairmen and investors
Republic of Ireland international footballers
Republic of Ireland B international footballers
Republic of Ireland under-21 international footballers
Republic of Ireland under-23 international footballers
Republic of Ireland youth international footballers
Republic of Ireland football managers
Republic of Ireland expatriate football managers
Robert Emmets Gaelic footballers
Robert Emmets hurlers
Sunderland A.F.C. directors and chairmen
Sunderland A.F.C. managers
Bertha Quinn (1873–1951) was a British suffragette and socialist, from Leeds, who was arrested five times and once went to prison, becoming one of the first Catholic suffragette prisoners to be force-fed after going on hunger strike. Quinn became a Labour councillor from 1929–43, and was a trades union representative of the Tailors and Garment Workers from 1915–43. Quinn was awarded the Papal Bene Merenti Medal in 1946.

Early life 
Baptised Bridget, but always known as Bertha, Quinn was born in Middlesbrough in 1873, to Irish Catholic parents. Quinn became a worker in the garment industry and later joined the workers union.

Suffragette activism 
Quinn became involved in the Women's Social and Political Union (WPSU militant suffragettes) in common with other working women who did not join the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) which was more aligned to the Liberal party and employers. Quinn took part in WSPU protests including chaining herself to the House of Commons railings and was arrested five times, and imprisoned after protesting when Prime Minister Asquith came to Leeds, brutally prevented from entering the venue by police, and resulting in five days in Armley Prison, Leeds in October 1908.

On 27 April 1909, Quinn and four other WSPU members accompanied a male companion into St. Stephen's Hall, at the House of Commons, allegedly waiting for their companion to meet his M.P.  At the planned time of 4pm, when Big Ben chimed, Quinn blew a whistle, went to the statue of Lord Somers, and attached a banner advertising a WSPU Albert Hall rally, whilst Theresa Garnett, Margery Humes and Sylvia Russell attached themselves to other statues, and another (possibly Alys Pearsall Smith Russell) whistled and started a speech in nearby Central Hall. The reason given for this protest to the crowd who gathered was that statues were of men remembered for campaigning for 'British liberties' in Stuart days and that they (the suffragettes/suffragists) were doing the same for twentieth century Britons. This unusual protest was given press publicity, in Britain, and as far afield as New Zealand.

One hundred years afterwards, 78 M.Ps signed an early day motion to commemorate Quinn and the other women's action in favour of women's rights, and to continue encouraging all women to use their vote, and for Parliament to move towards gender balance.

Political life 
Quinn was among a large proportion of Catholics (a minority in the country at that time), in the Tailors and Garment Workers Union. That influenced her stance on a number of topical matters. At the Labour Women's Congress in May 1925, Quinn declared birth control as a 'crime against God', and information supporting it was 'filth', only to be reprimanded by 'Red Ellen' Wilkinson for being insulting, urging Quinn not to assume impure motives from delegates who 'hold equally sincere but opposing views. The motion was passed there, but sentiment went to and fro on the matter, for a number of years, across different Labour party conventions and votes, as the party was split.  During the General Strike of 1926, Quinn was a leading member of the Leeds Council of Action, and later elected as a Labour councillor from 1929 to 1943, although at one point she was expelled from the party. At the age of 73, she still attended as councillor, the Leeds Council meetings and was described as 'fiery'.

In a Leeds Library  lecture series, former politician Michael Meadowcroft described Quinn's personality as 'formidable but difficult' with 'great passion but little diplomacy'.

Internationalism and faith 
In 1917, Quinn was one of the two delegates sent to the Leeds Convention of the Independent Labour Party and the British Socialist Party, with 1,150 people joining leading politicians of the day including Keir Hardie, Asquith, Lloyd George, Ramsay MacDonald, Bernard Russell, Ernest Bevin which was controversially inciting action in solidarity with Russian workers and soldiers after the Russian revolution. The event had been resisted by the city dignatories, but gone ahead due to pressure of numbers. It carried motions on world peace, a charter of human rights, and congratulated Russian workers revolutionaries, and even encouraging organised activism in the British working class.

At the 1936 Trades Union Congress, Quinn for the Tailors and Garment Workers Union, was one of the Catholic workers' leaders however who opposed the Spanish Civil War, and decried outrages on both sides of that conflict saying 'Red outrages had been perpetrated in Spain.' Quinn objected at her own union's congress that British workers groups were being asked to formally express solidarity with the Spanish trades unions, a point taken up by the Catholic press.' Quinn had also prevented clothing being collected and shipped out to the revolutionary side. And her final word was 'I have made my point and that is all I wanted.'

Death 
Quinn died in Leeds, in 1951, and her Requiem Mass at Leeds Cathedral was well attended. Quinn is buried at Killingbeek Cemetery.

The Lord Mayor, Alderman H. O'Donnell wrote in the Yorkshire Post, "[Quinn] would neither be frightened out of her convictions, nor laughed out of them. She would stand in all weathers outside the cathedral and sell tickets for good causes.

" In spite of her caustic tongue, she was a loyal friend to anyone in trouble, very womanly. good living, straightforward, thinking of everyone before herself. Her life was an example to the younger generation."

References 

1873 births
1951 deaths
People from Middlesbrough
People from Leeds
Women's Social and Political Union
Independent Labour Party councillors
English suffragettes
British socialists
Hunger strikers
British Catholics
Women councillors in England Double Team is a 1997 American action comedy film directed by Tsui Hark in his American directorial debut and starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dennis Rodman, and Mickey Rourke.  Van Damme plays counter-terrorist agent Jack Quinn, who is assigned to bring an elusive terrorist known as Stavros to justice. Things become personal when Stavros kidnaps Quinn's pregnant wife after his own lover and child were killed in an assassination attempt that went awry. Aiding Quinn in his rescue is his flamboyant weapons dealer Yaz (Dennis Rodman).

This film received negative reviews and was a box office bomb.
The film was also nominated for and "won" three Golden Raspberry Awards: Worst Supporting Actor (Rodman), Worst New Star (also Rodman), and Worst Screen Couple (Rodman and Van Damme).

Plot
After retrieving a truck load of plutonium stolen from a US military base in Croatia by freelance international terrorist Stavros (Mickey Rourke), government anti-terrorist agent Jack Paul Quinn (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is relaxing by his pool 3 years later in Southern France with Kathryn, his pregnant wife. Quinn is approached by a government representative who tells him that Stavros, Quinn's nemesis, has become active again and tries to convince Quinn to come out of retirement. Quinn is reluctant to return to duty but agrees after the same representative is killed by Stavros shortly after the meeting with Quinn.

Quinn travels to Antwerp, Belgium where he meets up with quirky arms dealer Yaz (Dennis Rodman), who outfits him. Quinn and his team track Stavros to an amusement park but Quinn hesitates to give the order to shoot Stavros when it becomes apparent that Stavros is meeting with his six-year-old son. Stavros exploits Quinn's hesitation and a shootout ensues in which Stavros' son is killed and Stavros is able to escape into a hospital, pursued by Quinn. Stavros and Quinn fight in the hospital's maternity ward with Stavros getting away after knocking Quinn unconscious in an explosion. Quinn wakes up on 'The Colony', an inescapable, invisible penal institution island for secret agents.

Quinn learns that he has been sent to the Colony due to his failure to capture Stavros and that his family has been told he was killed. The occupants of the Colony are all failed international agents expected to help analyze terrorist threats and have to register themselves present every day using a fingerprint scanner. Meanwhile, Kathryn receives a call from an art gallery in Rome telling her that they would like to display her sculptures and that they will fly her out immediately. When she arrives, Stavros kidnaps her.

Whilst analyzing information received from a terrorist bombing, Quinn picks up a message from Stavros telling him that Stavros has captured Kathryn; Quinn realizes he must escape the Colony to save her. Quinn devises a system to fool the fingerprint scanner and is able to leave the island by attaching himself to cargo due to be extracted from the island from the air.  Another agent on the Colony, Goldsmythe, is activated as Quinn's "guardian" - responsible for tracking him down.

Quinn goes to Yaz, pleading for assistance in return for access to CIA bank accounts. Yaz agrees to help and the two go to Quinn's house where they are ambushed by Stavros' men. After fighting the men off, Quinn receives a message from Stavros telling him that he must go to Rome for his baby's sake. When they arrive in Rome, Yaz learns that Quinn's wife is pregnant after Stavros delivers a sonogram of the baby to the given rendezvous. Quinn emails Stavros encouraging him to meet in a town square, knowing that Stavros will have to take the bait.

At the meeting point, Quinn catches sight of Kathryn in a car but is intercepted by Stavros before he can reach her and a shootout occurs as Kathryn is driven away. Quinn tracks Stavros' sniper to the hotel suite where Kathryn was being held and finds a clue to her whereabouts — a prescription bottle label. Meanwhile, Kathryn is transported to a hospital where she gives birth.

Using the prescription bottle and with the help of an order of monks Yaz has equipped with computers and Internet access, Quinn is able to reach the hospital where he finds Kathryn and discovers that Stavros has taken his son. Quinn locates Stavros and the baby in an explosive-rigged Roman amphitheater. Stavros leaves Quinn in the middle of a minefield with his son and unleashes a tiger.

Yaz arrives on a motorbike and is able to snatch the baby, leaving Quinn to escape from the tiger and go after Stavros. Quinn and Stavros eventually fight in the minefield until Stavros steps on a mine (after Yaz moved the markers) and is left stranded. Goldsmythe, who has tracked Quinn, finds the baby; Quinn, his son, Goldsmythe and Yaz run as Stavros is charged by the tiger and takes his foot off the mine.  The chain reaction of all the mines devastates the arena and the 4 take shelter behind a Coca-Cola vending machine.  In the aftermath, Goldsmythe asks Quinn for his hair and shirt as proof that he successfully "tracked" him; Yaz drops a smoke bomb, allowing Quinn to escape.

Cast
Jean-Claude Van Damme as Jack Paul Quinn: A government counter-terrorist agent, forced out of retirement by the kidnapping of his pregnant wife, Kathryn, by Stavros.
Dennis Rodman as Yaz: An eccentric arms dealer. Yaz is based in or near Antwerp, Belgium, and boasts that he stocks military hardware so new that even he does not know he has it. Yaz initially agrees to help Quinn defeat Stavros after being offered access to CIA bank accounts but commits himself freely after discovering Kathryn is pregnant.
Mickey Rourke as Stavros: An international terrorist. Stavros works freelance for any government willing to offer him sufficient financial incentive. At the start of the film, he is implicated in the theft of plutonium from a United States military base with the suggestion being that he intended to sell it to Iraq. He undertakes a personal vendetta against Quinn, blaming Quinn for the death of his son.
Natacha Lindinger as Kathryn Quinn: Jack's wife and a sculptor by trade, Kathryn and her then unborn son are kidnapped by Stavros.
Paul Freeman as Alex Goldsmythe: A friend with whom Jack Quinn is reunited after arriving at the Colony and who Jack had previously thought dead, Alex is Jack's 'guardian'. Jack's welfare and performance is Alex's responsibility and Alex is involved with tracking Jack once he escapes the island.

Production

Filming

Double Team was filmed on location in Antwerp, Belgium; Nice and Arles, France; and Rome, Italy. Whilst the film implies that the climactic fight between Quinn and Stavros takes place in Rome's Colosseum, the scenes were actually filmed in and around the Arles Amphitheater in Southern France.

Score
Original music for Double Team was composed by Gary Chang, who had previously worked on films including The Breakfast Club and The Color of Money. The soundtrack includes songs by Joey Schwartz, Leareo Gianferrari and Crystal Waters featuring Dennis Rodman.

Reception

Critical reception

Double Team attracted many negative reviews, holding a current score of 11% on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. Rodman's contribution as Yaz attracted particular criticism with attention being brought to the character's esoteric fashion sense, one reviewer pointing out that "his hair covers all known hues of the spectrum". In addition, the film's plot and production was attacked by several reviewers for being unimaginative and impassive. The New York Times wrote that Double Teams "sets are impersonal. Actors sleepwalk. Scenes do not end, they just stop".

Criticism was not, however, universally negative. The Los Angeles Times referred to Double Team as "one of Van Damme's best" and continued to praise both Rodman's and Rourke's performances.  In addition, the film was awarded four stars out of five by boxoffice.com in a retrospective review written in 2008.

Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale.

Awards and nominations

References

External links
 
 
 

1997 films
1997 action comedy films
1990s buddy comedy films
American films
American action comedy films
American buddy comedy films
1990s English-language films
Columbia Pictures films
Films about terrorism
Films directed by Tsui Hark
Films scored by Gary Chang
Films set in Belgium
Films set in Antwerp
Films set in France
Films set in Rome
Films shot in Antwerp
Mandalay Pictures films
1997 comedy films
Golden Raspberry Award winning films